Varla Jean Merman is known hereabouts for her fundraising concert for Hartford’s Mark Twain House last June, her appearance in Charles Ludlam’s quickchange farce The Mystery of Irma Vep at both Hartford Stage and the Long Wharf Theatre in 2004, her multiple collaborations with playwright/Connecticut theater-marketing guy Jacques Lamarre, and for purporting to be the love child of Ethel Merman and Hamden native Ernest Borgnine.
Varla Jean Merman (sometime known as Jeffery Roberson) is taking time off from her whirlwind one-woman shows to be part of the original cast of Lucky Guy, The Musical. Willard Beckham’s multi-styled Nashville-set singing-cowboy musical began previews last week at the Little Shubert Theatre in New York. Opening night is May 19, and the Off Broadway run ends July 24. Besides Varla, the cast includes Kyle Dean Massey, Leslie Jordan, Jenn Colella, Jim Newman and Savannah Wise.
Lucky Guy was developed at Goodspeed Musical’s Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, Connecticut, back in 2009, with a completely different cast: Josh Grisetti, Gary Beach, Katie Adams, Autumn Hurlbert, John Bolton and Stacia Fernandez.